A Study of synonyms in Tamil K. BALASUBRAMANIAN Annamalai University The study of synonyms in Tamil is not new. Ancient grammarians starting from Tolkappiar and the authors of Nikantus recognize the existence of synonyms and give lists of synonyms.” Semantics, that branch of linguistics which deals with the study of meaning treats synonymy in its various aspects. In this paper the different aspects of Tamil synonyms are studied from the point of view of Modern Linguistics. When one studies the relationship between words and their meanings three types of situations arise. monosemy, one word — one meaning” polysemy”, one word — several meanings, and synonymy, several words — one meaning. Two (or more) items are synonymous if the sentences which result from the substitution of one for the other have the same meaning (Lyons 1968 : 42). Thus the words uyarnta and netiya are synonymous as the sentences atu uyarnta maram and atu nețiya maram both mean “It is a tall tree'. But if we carry out this substitution test with further sentences we get different results. Either substitution test is not possible as in the sentence iikai uyarnta kunam 242
